A Curmudgeon and The iPad: Round 2

Submitted by Syv Ritch on 4. June 2010 - 23:00

Sales of the iPad didn't live up to predictions. Apple announced on Monday 5-Apr-2010 that it sold "only" 300,000 iPads on the first day. Piper's Gene Munster predicted between 600,000 to 700,000 iPads to be sold on the first day.

This is half the 600,000-700,000 number Piper's Gene Munster reported over the weekend. The 300,000 iPads sold included deliveries of pre-ordered iPads, deliveries to channel partners and sales at Apple Retail Stores. We assume that the delivery to the channel are actually sold, but we don't know for sure. It looks like Gene Munster made the numbers up without checking with Apple.

Who's buying these iPads?

  1. The Geek
  2. The "Arrogant" who has to be the first. "Guess what I've got!" and you don't.
  3. The Fashonista

The problem for the photographers is that many fashionistas are the one that buy photos. They need to see your portfolio, or your website. Meaning no Flash. Does your website relies on Flash? Time to convert to JavaScripts.

Please note, that I don't like Flash. I've never liked Flash. I don't like websites that rely on Flash.

Who owns the content on your iPad

That depends.

  1. All the statistics like the networking information, usage information... are owned by Apple. Apple has announced/mentioned that they are building a search engine based on that data.
  2. All the books, news, music... This is owned by the publishers. They can revoke your ownership and then you're up the creek. For example, you buy from a company, the company goes bankrupt, the assets are bought by another company. The other company now owns your books, news or music...
  3. The content that you yourself create, such as photos, text... There has been no clear answer from Apple. I guess that the courts will have to decide.

Apple's track record

I saw an iPad in Canada. I didn't play with it, just looked at it. It looked so much like a MacBook Air. Wasn't the MacBook Air a flop? Very few MacBook Air are being sold right now. It could also be due to the price or because of Guy Kawasaki. The "good" iPad is a thousand dollars!

Some people are starting to report networking problems with the WiFi on the iPad.